Rhue, Morton: The Wave

Laurie Saunders is sitting at her desk to write for The Gordon Grapevine. All the others are outside because it is a lovely day. They don’t stop talking to their friends although they all know that they have to finish their next issue. The bell rings soon, so Laurie stands up and leaves the room to meet Amy in Mr Gabondi’s French class. When the break is over, both go into the classroom of Mr Ross. He tries to thread a film through the complex, because the class is going to see a film about the Second World War. It is about the Germans and their active pressure on the fens. All the pupils are shocked because of the film. Lots of questions are asked and Ben Ross tries to give useful answers. He tells them about World War Two. They all are very interested and want to know more about the war. But then the bell rings and all pupils go out of the class except Laurie. She tells her boyfriend David Collins to leave without her. She talks to Mr Ross and she wants to know why the people didn’t do anything against the Nazis. But he doesn’t know the answer to this question.

David has already finished when Laurie arrives at the canteen. David can’t understand why she has been bothered by the movie because all they saw was only history. After lunch Laurie and Amy go into The Grapevine’s office. Laurie is smoking when someone knocks at the door. Carl Block and Alex Cooper, two guys from The Grapevine come in. They look what’s going on in here.

In the afternoon Ben Ross thinks about the questions he couldn’t answer in his history class. So he takes some books with him and goes home. Christy is playing tennis this afternoon, so he has enough time to go through some books to find the right answer. When his wife comes home, Ben is sitting at the table and is reading in a book about the ”Third Reich”. He hardly notices her. She knows that her husband is very concentrated on those books because such situations have often occurred. So she goes to bed and let him know that he has to be quiet if he goes to bed that night.

In the next history lesson Mr Ross writes the sentence ”Strength through Discipline” on the blackboard. This is the first part of his experiment. When he is talking about discipline he is talking about power and success. From that point the students become more interested. First they have to take a better sitting position and they have to wander through the classroom and sit down as fast as they can. At the beginning there is chatting and a big mess. For the next twenty minutes the class practise, then they do it in half the time.

Ross tells them three rules: everybody must have pencils and notepapers for note taking; asking or answering a question you must stand at the side of your seat; the first words you say asking or answering a question are ”Mr. Ross”.

In the evening Ben talks to Christy and says that he doesn’t want to go on with it although he likes it because the students didn’t leave the class when the bell rang.

On the next day the students are already sitting on their seats in their posture. The teacher adds to the words ”Strength through Discipline” the word ”community”. There mottos are now: ”Strength through Discipline” and ”Strength through community”. The whole class has to stand up and repeat the mottos. Then Mr Ross draws a circle with a shape of a wave in it on the blackboard. This is their common sign. They also have a common salute. The name of the experiment now is the wave.

David tries to get the football team into the wave because he sees a possibility to win more games and making a real team.

On the third day Ben gives them yellow membership cards. Some have a red ”X” on the other side like Brian’s and Robert’s cards. Those pupils are like monitors. They have to denounce other students, who don’t obey the rules of the wave, directly to Mr Ross. Then they enlarge the motto by the third word ”Strength through Action”. From this day Ross wants them all to be equal and there are no competitions against each other.

The wave is no longer an idea or a game. It is a living moment in the students.

Laurie is the only one who feels strange about the wave. The others like it because they are all equal, they don`t have to worry how popular they are.

Laurie is sitting in The Grapevine office and asks the staff if they have written anything. Then they tell her to write about the wave. So she begins to get all information and interviews about the wave.

One Teacher, Norm Schiller, has never talked to any teacher, but now, he is the trainer of the football team, he congratulates Ben because he thinks that the wave is something great.

Laurie is doing her homework when her mother comes into her room. They talk about the wave, the pros and cons and Robert Billings, who has changed completely because he has started to speak with his classmates, in contrast to former times.

Next day Ben has to come to Principal Owens. When he enters the room they speak about the wave. Ben tells him how the thing started and what it is about.

The same day Laurie gets a letter from a younger student who is also in Mr. Ross` class with his friends. After the lesson a senior student asked them if they wanted to join in and how great it was. The student`s friends wanted to join in but the boy didn`t. So the senior was telling him that he would never have friends because they didn’t want pupils who weren`t in the wave and if he didn’t join soon it would be too late.

Now Laurie should answer the letter in the next edition of The Grapevine. She thinks that the wave starts to get out of control.

On that day Robert asks Ross to be his bodyguard because such a big leader needs bodyguards. At the beginning Ross has some doubts but he agrees because he sees it as a part of the experiment.

Laurie finds some students who are against the wave, too. They write an article about it. It explains the wave as a dangerous and mindless movement. The contributors of The Grapevine are very happy about the success of the paper, the teachers and students who are against the movement thank them for this issue.

After school Brian and David are waiting for Laurie because David has to talk with her, but Laurie doesn`t want to listen to him. So David grasps her arm. He says that Laurie hasn`t got the right to disturb what is so good for nearly all students. When she shouts that she hates the wave he throws her down to the grass. David can’t believe that he has done such a stupid thing for the wave. Laurie and David visit Ben Ross for telling him to break up the wave. Ross already has a plan but he can`t tell it to Laurie and David because if the students recognise that he wants to end it they will have learned nothing or they`ll fight against Ben Ross and giving up the wave.

Next day Ross explains the students that there is a rally to which all members should come because their leader speaks to them. At the rally they have guards who control the membership cards and are aware that only wave members at the rally. All the pupils are staring on a huge, blank movie screen. Then Ben Ross shouts "There is your leader!" and the film starts. All the wave members now see the same film about the nazi regime with Hitler they have already seen at the beginning. Ross adds that they have made some good nazis. The pupils are shocked. They see that it could happen again and that they could be the victims. They have learnt a lot about this experiment and will now see the Nazi time with different eyes.

We liked the book because it wasn’t fiction. This story was reality and so the effect of the book and the impression after reading was really better. We can highly recommend this book. We think that it was written for our age group.